Take a moment to reflect on your companies learning and development program. What types of modalities are you investing in? What words would you use to describe the programs and offerings? Does a coordinated L&D program even exist? Most importantly, is it worth your investment? A majority of training in today’s companies fall flat, but when delivered effectively can be incredibly valuable to both the professional and personal growth of employees and employers alike. The last thing your company wants is to spend dollars on programs that are completely missing mark, just to tick off a box. And yet, so many companies are mandating that [busy] employees attend lecture-based training sessions that either don’t align with their needs, or aren’t delivered in an effective format. Does this sound familiar? If you’re looking for an exciting revamp to L&D offerings, we think we’ve struck gold with this one.
Enter: GoldJam Creative. An NYC based company that leads interactive communication skills workshops that pull from comedy and acting principles, are based in research, and consist of warm-ups, tailored individual and partner exercises, and group discussions. Founded by Creative Directors Allison Goldberg and Jen Jamula, both of whom graduated from Yale University with degrees in Theatre Studies, the pair make fantastic lead coaches and creators of programs and offerings that employees will love, laugh through (a lot) and learn from. They’re very serious about their work, but they use comedy to engage participants to boost communication, creativity and confidence in the workplace.
About GoldJam: GoldJam uses interactivity, expertise, and humor to enhance communication and interpersonal skills in the workplace, and is dedicated to supporting thoughtful, inclusive, and vibrant professionals. Their team has been creating and customizing learning experiences for companies and individuals since 2014, helping partners to ignite team-building, handle emotions and charged conversations, engage creative problem-solving skills and prepare their people to be leaders. GoldJam programming covers topics ranging from Public Speaking and Presentation Skills, to Effective Communication, to Unconscious Bias and Conscious Inclusion, to Women in Leadership and Male Allies, and more.
Learning Through Doing: GoldJam knows that people learn by doing as opposed to being lectured. That’s why they keep group sizes small and participants on their feet by providing interactive skills workshops, facilitated discussions, private coaching and consulting services.
Corporate Training Through Interactive and Actionable Workshops:
GoldJam creates employee training programs using acting techniques and comedy principles to bring expert research and studies to life. Whether offering a program onsite or virtually, GoldJam facilitators get employees on their feet and practicing their new skills in-the-moment, so leaders and teammates walk away ready to take action.
Each exercise is highly interactive despite the remote nature. GoldJam facilitates group activities, partnered exercises, polls, and breakout rooms that relay best practices for productivity, morale, culture and, of course, communication. Standard workshops are two hours long and flexible formats can be accommodated with content geared towards all levels.
Facilitated Discussions: GoldJam believes that “non-work” discussion between employees is important too, and encourages compassion, collaboration, better communication, and a sense of community at work. These 45-minute session starts with a brief theme introduction, followed by a grounding activity, then the bulk of each session consists of small-group breakout discussions spurred by thought-provoking prompts.
Private Coaching: If employees are in need of more one-to-one support, GoldJam offers hour long private coaching sessions based on employee needs. A coach will create curriculum for individual employees, and between sessions, send extensive notes and some homework, which could be practicing a skill in a real-life context, as well as fleshing out, rehearsing, or memorizing talking points so that they can use time together to “level up”, rather than find a baseline.
If your organization is looking for a complete revamp, GoldJam offers consulting services. They will help you to reimagine program structures and event formats. Through focused discussion with you and deep-dives into your materials, the team will assess current programming, then research and deliver recommendations.
GoldJam has worked with clients like Buzzfeed, AmEx, Teachable, Deloitte, SoulCycle, TimeWarner and WeWork. Check out some of their client testimonials.
